BSN Could Do More to Serve Largest Customers

Audit Report – MS-AR-14-005 – July 9, 2014

The Business Service Network (BSN), the U.S. Postal Service’s one-stop shop for its largest customers’ questions and concerns, could generate an additional $382 million in fiscal year 2014 by increasing customer outreach to all of the roughly 23,000 organizations the network serves.

Our recent audit report reviewed the effectiveness of the BSN and found that up to 53 percent of accounts that require outreach were not contacted proactively. We also found the average resolution time for customer service requests was 5 days, rather than the BSN’s 3-day goal. Delays were due to the fact that BSN staff relies on other areas of the Postal Service for help in resolving customer concerns. For that reason, we recommended BSN staff members be given access to more resources, such as Intelligent Mail barcode data, so they can address customers’ questions faster. We also recommended all BSN customers have the opportunity to provide feedback through the customer experience surveys. Further, we encouraged the Postal Service to expand the methodology used to evaluate BSN staff to include metrics, such as revenue growth or timeliness in resolving issues, that more accurately reflect performance.